What ever happened to African warlord Joseph Kony?

Increased efforts to arrest Kony1:51

The Obama Administration announced its plans to deploy V-22 Osprey military aircraft to support efforts by the African Union to end the violence of the Lord's Resistance Army. Courtesy: Invisible Children

June 11th 2014

5 years ago

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Picture: AP/file

YOU bought the T-shirt, liked the Facebook page, and watched the man who started it all have a very public naked breakdown.

And then you moved on.

It has been more than two years since Invisible Children’s Stop Kony campaign went more viral than a global pandemic.

So what happened to Kony, the bloodthirsty African warlord who briefly transfixed the world?

Sums it up: This tweet was sent to the founder of the Kony 2012 campaign.

Joseph Kony is a former choirboy and the founder of the bloodthirsty guerilla organisation the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

He claims to be a spokesman of God and says he has had conversations with many spirits. Those ghosts must have been telling him some terrible things.

The list of the LRA’s atrocities is long. Among them, mass murder, sex slavery, and the abduction of thousands of children, many who became child soldiers for his army.

The US says that the abduction of 200 Nigerian schoolgirls by terrorist group Boko Haram last month — highlighted by the #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign — was inspired by Kony’s cruel tactics.

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In abducting >200 girls, #BokoHaram is mimicking one of the #LRA's most monstrous tactics. Must do more to defeat both. #BringBackOurGirls— Samantha Power (@AmbassadorPower) May 12, 2014

What has he done since 2012?

He’s been hiding from the cameras these past years.

Well, plenty of hiding. As Michael Hayworth from Amnesty International quips: “Obviously, he hasn’t been arrested.”

But he has a track record of evading capture. After all, there have been calls for Kony’s arrest from groups such as Amnesty since 1994.

Most of us last heard about the campaign 10 days after the video went viral, when Invisible Children’s founder, Jason Russell, went on a naked, expletive-laden rampage on the streets of San Diego. He had suffered a psychotic breakdown.

A year after the incident, in an interview with The Guardian, Mr Russell blamed the immense pressure he felt after transforming from a total unknown to a global celebrity in days. Mr Russell was quoted saying: “The thing that sucks the most is that it gives people an excuse not to do anything.

“People are like, ‘Didn’t that filmmaker take all the money and then go crazy naked in the street?’”

Mr Russell is still involved with Invisible Children. In recent months, the organisation has flier-bombed areas occupied by the LRA providing recruits with instructions on how to peacefully surrender.